Magnanimity
by Carmilla
Summary: Angst, with slashy bits. Rimmer muses on one of the odd quirks of life on Red Dwarf.


TITLE: Magnanimity

AUTHOR: Carmilla

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: Just a little bit of Rimmer angst. Slashy implications.

DISCLAIMER: That might gestalt entity, Grant Naylor, owns all. I merely play with them.

* * *

The strangest thing about life on Red Dwarf was this. It wasn't being stranded in uncharted deep space with no conceivable way of getting home. It wasn't keeping company with an obsolete service droid, a senile computer, a purring, preening man with vampire-like fangs, and the universe's biggest slob. It wasn't even being dead and composed entirely of light. The strangest thing about this life was that nothing – absolutely nothing – was unforgivable.

Even among that unusually petty and vindictive breed of men, the wannabes of the Space Corps – those who longed for officerdom but lacked the drive, the nerve, or quite simply the talent for it – Arnold J. Rimmer was considered meaner and more likely to bear a grudge than most. He took a kind of pride in this, mistakenly thinking that such a reputation made him seem tougher, a man to be reckoned with, a man who kicked arse and took names; and correctly reasoning that he had nothing to lose by it but his popularity, a decidedly low stake. His was a mind that saw insults everywhere – in the behaviour of fellow crewmembers, in the behaviour of the machines he worked on, in the frankly stubborn behaviour of his unruly hair, in the least imperfection of the ship that had been his home for more years than he cared to remember. He couldn't help it. It was in his nature. And it was in his nature also to take those insults very, very personally, to catalogue them neatly on a private mental scorecard, and to store them away so that someday, when the moment was right, appropriate retribution could be effected.

And yet… and yet, in the three years of his hologramatic unlife, the roll of offences that Lister had committed was as long as his arm, as long as both his arms (literally – he'd written them out on holopaper just to check); and he couldn't remember the last time that he'd plotted revenge. It just… wasn't something he did anymore. True, the pair of them had done some fairly horrible things to each other over the years, and they'd fight about it, scream at each other, and Rimmer longed more than ever for a physical body so that they could just smegging hit each other, and get it out of their systems. But they couldn't. Instead, when it got really bad, he would go off alone somewhere – hike through the miles and miles of echoing metal corridors, or wander into the empty supply decks, huge and hollow, so vast that he couldn't see the far walls. Sometimes he'd sleep down there. But he always came back.

And that was the thing – he had to come back. Where else could he go? He thought it significant that in a ship with living quarters for over a thousand, he and Lister had never once tried to keep separate rooms. In this vast edifice where they could easily have gone weeks without seeing each other's faces, they spent almost all their time together. It was a compulsion. He didn't understand it, but neither could he resist it.

Lister certainly understood it no better than he did, but maybe he accepted it more. Whenever Rimmer came back after a few days away, just as he had the first time after his ill-fated attempt to share a room with his double, Lister never said anything. No sarcastic comments, no forced pleasantries that would have stung just as much. Maybe, if he thought Rimmer wasn't looking, a little half smile. Accepting Rimmer's need for his company, his inability to stay away. Perhaps because of a need of his own that matched it. And the rule was this: once Rimmer came back in the room, the fight was over, the offence forgotten – no blame on either side. Neither of them ever broke it.

Rimmer had come close, once. After their days stranded together on Starbug in the midst of an ice storm. He'd spent two weeks in Red Dwarf's lower decks, near to the comforting hum of the engines, staring dry-eyed at the wreckage of his camphorwood chest, his last, stupid, priceless possession. He'd seethed inwardly, spending the time working himself further and further into a righteous fury, and eventually come storming into their quarters to tell that sneaking, scuzz-sucking slimeball exactly what he thought of him.

Lister had looked up at him. He'd been sitting on Rimmer's bunk, wrapped in Rimmer's duvet, clutching his guitar to his chest. And he'd been crying.

Rimmer forgave him before he even knew what he was doing.

And so they carried on, drifting through space, scrapping, sniping, getting on each other's nerves. And getting over it, because they knew they needed each other; a need fuelled by the certainty, growing daily more crushing and more absolute, that there was no-one else.

And yet, Rimmer was still afraid.

Afraid to tell Lister that his need for him was something he couldn't properly control anymore, couldn't rationalise, couldn't pretend was born of duty or necessity or even friendship. That he no longer wanted a body just to hit Lister; that hitting didn't even come within the top ten of things he wanted to do to him, anymore. That he thought that maybe, just maybe, after a lifetime of loathing and being loathed by his family, of misunderstanding and being misunderstood by the opposite sex, he finally understood what love was. That he loved Lister. Maybe. And what a smegging irony that was.

And he doesn't tell him, can't tell him, and it's not for fear of rejection or even of ridicule.

It's because he's afraid that perhaps, this is the one thing that's still unforgivable.

END


End file.
